


Regret (The Dreams & Memories Remix)

by tuuli



Category: Hikaru no Go
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-15
Updated: 2012-04-15
Packaged: 2017-11-03 16:55:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/383747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuuli/pseuds/tuuli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two boys and a sleeping man at a hospital.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Regret (The Dreams & Memories Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [troisroyaumes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/troisroyaumes/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Regret, a Portrait](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/7884) by troisroyaumes. 



I

The silence of a hospital room has a depth peculiar to it, quite different from all other silences there are. The sounds – beeping of machines, hissing of a ventilator, footsteps in the corridor and a wheelchair rolling by – they don't break it; rather they become a part of the silence, weaving tightly into its texture, intensifying it so that a visitor imagines he could hear his own heartbeat while standing hesitantly by the bed, uncertain of what to say.

Quiet words, finally spoken, also drown into that silence. 

_… how … is he …_

Perhaps it is because for the one lying in the bed in the hospital room, there are no sounds. Certainly his eardrums vibrate as the sound waves brush against them, a message is rushed to the brain – but the brain, the mind, still there although somewhere far away, cannot receive it. The absolute stillness of a pale face against a spotless white pillowcase radiates such a deep hush that it becomes a vortex sucking in all sound there is.

_… sleeping … the doctor … sedative …_

In such a deep, drug-induced sleep, it is hard for a visitor to know whether there is anything going on behind that pale complexion. If there are dreams, or memories – or if the stillness is as immense inside as it is outside.

But a visitor would not, certainly, want to think so. Against all evidence he’d believe, because he would _have to_ believe, that everything wouldn’t be gone. That one day that pale face would regain its color, the eyes would open and be as sharp and knowing as before, and all the dreams and memories that make this man the one he is would still be there. 

And this cold fear deep in the stomach could be forgotten – at least for a while.

II

It is something the hand remembers, rather than the brain: the touch of a cool stone. Subconscious even to the subconscious, buried somewhere so deep that no sedative can ever erase it, this old, familiar sensation brings intense feelings with it, and something else too, harder to define. Perhaps it’s a dream of a memory, or a memory of a dream, or maybe something even more unsubstantial.

But there is a vague image of a game played once – long ago? Or not so long? Time, though, is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter when something happened (or didn’t happen); the event still exists (if only in a dream). Different things surface at times: sounds, smells, the shape of stones on the board… a shimmering vision of a fan. Only in the deepest sleep they all, suddenly, snap into focus to form a coherent picture.

_It had been a cool evening. The cicadas’ song carried from somewhere far away, and though there was a mild breeze it wasn’t too cold to sit outside playing. The game had been a long one, both players taking their time to savor it, thinking every move through carefully, and now that it was over they had spent almost as long discussing it._

_Sitting on the hard wooden floor (his feet most likely half-asleep by now no matter how used he was to this position, though he was too absorbed in the game to notice) he heard his opponent say something, saw him point at the board with a fan…_ and he knows he replied, even laughed a little – but he can’t remember what was being said.

Looking up at his opponent with fondness, he realizes everything is fading, the memory (if a memory it was) turning into a dream, and the dream quickly losing its vividness. Suddenly there is confusion, and fear, too, for he knows he doesn’t want to lose this: this memory is, somehow, precious, important; a key to a mystery which he has long yearned to solve.

But the next moment it is gone, and he doesn’t even remember what it was he just lost. There is just a strong feeling of disappointment, annoyance, maybe even anger. The song of cicadas, the touch of stones… he tries to hold on to them, but though they linger a little longer, they have no meaning anymore.

(“Is he going to be alright?” he hears suddenly a whisper in the back of his mind, out of nowhere, and the sudden question confuses him a moment before it too is lost.)

His mind wanders. A game after a game after a game, pieces of them, unconnected, with no logic. But one game shatters that chain, stops the unending parade of random moves. Even now it shakes him, for he knows this game he didn’t think he would lose. It is a strange game, for it does not hold that memory of smooth stones, just the shapes on the board. But somehow it feels to him as if he saw a fan above the board, pointing at the moves…

…a fan, a slender hand holding it…black flowing hair, incredibly long, and eyes he _knows_ he knows…

…and the cicadas are back. The breeze, the laughter, the game that can’t be tied to time. Above all, his opponent, facing him across the go board. And something whispers to him to let go, just float along and not to try to figure it out, because this is all that is left.

This life, past life, one to come: no matter; the echoes of that game vibrate within the worn out heart, the sounds of the go stones and the distant cicadas more real than the quiet words spoken in the room. And he sleeps on, lying on his spotless hospital bedclothes, his hand on a go board both in dream and reality.

III

_… don’t know … second time … collapsed …_

The hospital room is as silent as ever. The two boys stand side to side by the bed, watching the sleeping man. One of them so still and quiet he could be a part of the room, eyes shadowed, lips a tight line; the other hovering softly, wanting to shift his feet, desperate for the silence to end, but still not knowing what one is supposed to say or do in a place like this. What one _can_ say or do?

_… touya …_

A single word, a name, somehow almost breaks the silence for a moment, although it is not any louder than what has been said before. One of the boys draws a breath, gives a quiet sigh. A streak of sunlight from the window glistens on the golden bangs of his companion, but his head is in the shadow as he softly shakes it.

_… doctor… critical …_

_oh_ , someone says, and the silence sucks in that single sound, more a breath than a word, and is complete once again.

**Author's Note:**

> I just had to make things hard on myself and decide to a) write my remix based on a 100 word story, and b) try to write it from the pov of someone who's unconscious. The result is... eh, well, above. No comment.


End file.
